Fernando Del Valle - Early Years

Early Years

Del Valle made his operatic debut at the age of seventeen (1981), as the First Shepherd in John Blow's Venus and Adonis (Blow), at Loyola University of the South. The next year, he was tenor soloist in Bach's "St Matthew Passion" with the New Orleans Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Massey, conducting. In 1986, he made his Boston debut in that composer's "Christmas Oratorio", in Jordan Hall, as the winner of the Boston Premiere Ensembles Young Artist Competition. The following spring, he sang at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, with the Beethoven Society of New York. Elsewhere, he continued his career as a concert tenor with a repertoire that included Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, and the Requiems of Verdi, Britten and Lloyd Webber. The tenor's Carnegie Hall debut occurred in 1993, with Mozart's "Great" Mass in C minor. He performed the tenor solos in George Frideric Handel's Messiah for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, at the The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in 1994. He made his European debut in 1995, singing in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Alun Francis, conducting

Del Valle's European operatic debut took place with the role of 'don José' in the Hugo de Ana production of Carmen at the Teatro Comunale di Treviso under the vocal direction of Regina Resnik and conducted by Peter Maag. In 1996, he appeared as Rodolfo in La bohème, at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Vladimir Jurowski, conducting.